{"id":19615,"date":"2022-06-13T17:12:12","date_gmt":"2022-06-13T23:12:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/resources2.soundstrue.com\/?post_type=transcript&p=19615"},"modified":"2022-07-05T09:58:01","modified_gmt":"2022-07-05T15:58:01","slug":"how-do-we-sustain-an-open-heart","status":"publish","type":"transcript","link":"https:\/\/resources2.soundstrue.com\/transcript\/how-do-we-sustain-an-open-heart\/","title":{"rendered":"How Do We Sustain an Open Heart?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"image_print\"Print Transcript<\/span><\/a><\/div>

Tami Simon:<\/b> Welcome to <\/span>Insights at the Edge<\/span><\/i>, produced by Sounds True. My name is Tami Simon. I\u2019m the founder of Sounds True. I\u2019d love to take a moment to introduce you to the Sounds True Foundation. The goal of the Sounds True Foundation is to provide access and eliminate financial barriers to transformational education and resources such as teachings and trainings on mindfulness, emotional awareness, and self-compassion. If you\u2019d like to learn more and join with us in our efforts, please visit SoundsTrueFoundation.org.<\/span><\/p>\n

In this episode of <\/span>Insights at the Edge<\/span><\/i>, my guest is Dr. Eve Ekman. Eve Ekman is a contemplative social scientist, and a senior fellow and director of training at the Greater Good Science Center. She worked for years as a social worker in healthcare, criminal justice, and social welfare systems, which inspired her to earn her masters and PhD at UC Berkeley and then complete her post-doctoral training at the UCSF Osher Center for Integrative Medicine.<\/span><\/p>\n

Her research has focused on helping professional care providers prevent burnout by giving them easier access to practices of attention, insight, and resilience. With Sounds True, along with Dacher Keltner, Eve Ekman has created a new online offering. It\u2019s called <\/span>The Greater Good Training for Healthcare Professionals: Science-Based Skills for Emotional Resilience and Wellbeing<\/span><\/i>.<\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s such an honor for Sounds True to partner with The Greater Good Science Center on this offering. If you\u2019re interested, you can learn more at SoundsTrue.com.<\/span><\/p>\n

Eve Ekman understands emotions from the perspective of the great wisdom traditions, from the view of scientific research, and from her own internal investigations, and she helps us understand how we can make space for all of our emotional experience and sustain an open heart in the process.<\/span> Here is an illuminating conversation with Dr. Eve Ekman.<\/span><\/p>\n

Eve, it\u2019s great to have this chance to be with you and to get to know you better. It\u2019s awesome.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Eve Ekman: <\/b>Thank you so much.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS: <\/b>Yes. I wanted to start off and find out, from your perspective, what it was like to grow up with your father, Dr. Paul Ekman, and here to be a second-generation emotion researcher, and how his work informed you. If you will, presume that our listeners don\u2019t know anything about your dad, because it\u2019s possible they don\u2019t.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

EE: <\/b>Thanks, Tami. Yes. I\u2019m so delighted to be here, and really looking forward to this conversation today. If you don\u2019t know my dad, I\u2019m so delighted to introduce our listeners to him, Paul Ekman. One of the taglines that was given to him early on was he\u2019s the Indiana Jones of psychology. He really likes that one, so I\u2019ll share it with everyone for his benefit, in that way as well.<\/span><\/p>\n

He was interested in human emotion. He was primarily interested in helping people overcome difficult experiences of emotion. That led to his early field research in Papua New Guinea, where he set out to really understand if there is something shared and universal about our experience of emotions. Meaning, if I\u2019m in one part of the world and I feel angry, am I showing actually a frown on my face as though I were sad?<\/span><\/p>\n

In that field research, he discovered this core aspect of universal human emotion, meaning what we feel in our bodies and what we display on our faces is caused by somewhat similar circumstances. From there, his research went on to look at the embodied experience of emotion, these unique physiological signatures\u2014or, a more simple way of saying it, that there\u2019s something different when we feel anxious to when we feel jealous. He looked at a lot as well, the way the face reveals some of our true feelings and how sometimes that can be challenging for us. And that became some work in deception.<\/span><\/p>\n

For me, the work that has been more inspiring is his work since 2000 with his holiness the Dalai Lama and then a whole series of wonderful Buddhist scholars and neuroscientists interested in this convergence between meditation, emotional awareness, and wellbeing.<\/span><\/p>\n

To the first part of your question, growing up with my dad was growing up with an awesome dad. He was so determined to be a dad. He became a dad at 45, which is, these days, not unusual. But in his time, he had waited years to find the right conditions to have a child. I really felt just such a sense of being the center of his universe, and fortunate to that. I know not everybody gets that experience with their dad.<\/span><\/p>\n

He was playful, he was joyful, an adventurer at heart. Growing up with him, I don\u2019t think I had an awareness that he was this hardcore researcher of emotion and human behavior. I do remember it coming into my consciousness\u2014he had a laboratory at UCSF, and it made me kind of self-conscious. After school, I got off the bus and I\u2019d go in the backdoor, because on the front door it said \u201cHuman Interaction Laboratory,\u201d and sometimes there was a bright red sign saying, \u201cDon\u2019t come in. Experiment in progress.\u201d My friends\u2019 parents were teachers or doing things that seemed far more regular and normal and here was my dad with this laboratory. That was my earliest recollections of his work.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS: <\/b>How did you discover inside yourself that following a similar path in some ways, and in some ways, different\u2014I\u2019d love to hear how you experience the similarities and differences, that that was the right route for you, the professional route for you.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

EE: <\/b>Yes. I wish I could say it was intentional, that I had a clear idea. All I knew is I didn\u2019t want to be in his shadow. For the early part of my career, I felt pretty clear on that.<\/span><\/p>\n

What I was really clear about was helping other people. That was the earliest inspiration I can remember. When I saw my dad\u2019s work, it seemed to me, it was kind of locked in the confines of a laboratory. Ultimately, it\u2019ll help people through research papers and conferences, but it didn\u2019t seem to me immediate enough. I was really drawn to this frontline work through journalism, through being a clinical social worker myself. But I started to become really interested, especially when I was working in the emergency room here at our level one trauma center, in what would help support myself and my colleagues manage the daily stress of being in an emergency room.<\/span><\/p>\n

If it were just that daily stress would make people burned out, everyone would be burned out. That wasn\u2019t the case. It was so wonderful to see the integrity and compassion of my colleagues, whether they were the X-ray techs or the surgeons, people really showing up and caring; and it was a lot to hold.<\/span><\/p>\n

As a social worker there, I felt the calling to go back to school and become a researcher of this compassion, and that\u2019s where I took my first step towards my dad\u2019s work\u2014because researching compassion is in the domain of psychology, and he had already begun his work with the Dalai Lama.<\/span><\/p>\n

I was still trying as much as possible to separate myself from what he had done, that I didn\u2019t necessarily just want people to believe I was only doing this work, because of him or anything I would achieve would be because of my close proximity to him. I had this sense of fairness around that.<\/span><\/p>\n

It was only because he became quite ill, the very first time he was supposed to teach this training, \u201cCultivating Emotional Balance,\u201d that I stepped in last minute, with two weeks\u2019 notice, and the first time I taught this material of bringing forth emotional awareness alongside meditation; it just clicked in. It felt like being in the emergency room, it felt that vital and that present for me. It was really, in some ways, an accident that I got involved.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS: <\/b>Now I want to talk a lot more, Eve, about your discoveries from being in the healthcare profession yourself, and the comment you made\u2014how come some people are getting burned out by this work and some people aren\u2019t. What can we learn? What can we discover?<\/span><\/p>\n

But before we get there, you and your father, with the encouragement and then blessing of the Dalai Lama, created this huge project called The Atlas of Emotions. This was a way of mapping all of the emotions for a certain goal in mind. If you could describe, what\u2019s the goal of The Atlas of Emotions that you and your father spent so many years working on together?<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

EE: <\/b>Yes. The goal is quite simple. The goal was one of his holiness, the Dalai Lama, who said, \u201cIn order for us to find our way to the new world, we needed a map. And in order for us to find our way to a calm mind, we need a map.\u201d The goal is a calm mind.<\/span><\/p>\n

This doesn\u2019t mean aloofness, not caring, the world events not affecting us; our loved ones being sick, we don\u2019t care. Calm means a place we return to when we become emotionally and intensely aroused.<\/span><\/p>\n

When we have a calm mind, we can have these acute emotional arousals and not get so sticky on it. The goal is, once we can identify and name our emotions, we have some capacity to\u2014this elusive word\u2014make space around them. What we know from the research is that this is called emotion granularity. When we get really specific and name and identify our emotions, we\u2019re actually halfway to having some capacity and control to be with them, and especially be with how we respond to them.<\/span><\/p>\n

When we talk about working with emotions, we\u2019re not talking about getting rid of triggers\u2014good luck. We\u2019re talking about how we can come into awareness, so we can impact how we respond to those emotions.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS: <\/b>OK. This notion of granularity, being able to name the emotion in its specificity, how does that help us go to a place of spaciousness? Why do I need to be able to name it? Can\u2019t I just be like, \u201cSomething weird is happening. I am going to go towards a big space\u201d? Why does naming help?<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

EE: <\/b>Yes. Such a good question. It\u2019s interesting. There are a couple research insights I can point to that I think are useful for folks. One is, especially, let\u2019s consider the end of the day, \u201cHow was your day yesterday?\u201d \u201cHard.\u201d \u201cOK.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

With that statement, what you\u2019re recalling is kind of this peak end role. You remember the most intense thing and often you\u2019re remembering the thing that happened at the end of the day, and that doesn\u2019t necessarily give you the full spectrum of your entire day in its richness.<\/span><\/p>\n

A little bit of research I got to do at UCSF is giving people an iPhone app to track their emotions throughout the day. These were residents who were very burned out. That is usual for residents. Here they are, in training, doing intensely hard work, being evaluated all the time with no sleep. It\u2019s a recipe, right? That\u2019s a challenging time for folks.<\/span><\/p>\n

When you ask them about burnout, what you\u2019re asking them is, \u201cHow were your last two weeks?\u201d They report this intensity and difficulty of daily experience. When you ask them throughout the day, many times, they report a whole variety, a kind of richness, this granular richness of emotions, \u201cI feel content, I feel anxious, I feel frustrated, I feel content again.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

What we found with this group\u2014we did 100 participants over two weeks, most of them reported two to three times a day, more than 50 percent of their emotions were enjoyable emotions, feeling content and feeling good. That was surprising for them.<\/span><\/p>\n

In our follow-up interviews, just naming those emotions throughout the day reframed or brought mindfulness to their daily lived experience. That\u2019s one aspect of why this granularity is helpful.<\/span><\/p>\n

Another aspect that\u2019s helpful is, when we are specific with our emotion experiences and naming them, they\u2019re less likely to be operating in the background draining us, almost awaiting this opportunity to then explode at the wrong moment.<\/span><\/p>\n

We can suppress our emotions. It\u2019s a really useful skill. We should do so, very often. Yet, if we\u2019re never tuning in, identifying or naming what we\u2019re feeling, we\u2019re also building up this reservoir. You could think of charge or difficulty. It\u2019s also well explained through our autonomic nervous system. If we\u2019re having this buildup of over-arousal and stress that we\u2019re not attending to or releasing to in a certain way, it just becomes difficult for us to see clearly.<\/span><\/p>\n

A lot of amazing research about the impact of stress and over-arousal of stress on memory, on cognition, so this naming of our emotions diffuses the emotion, because we\u2019re able to see it and then do this other interesting term in psychology, which is decentering: \u201cI am not anger\u2014I am angry.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS: <\/b>\u00a0I want to talk more about the Atlas, but just personally for a moment\u2014do you have a kind of set of go-to moves, if you will, when you feel yourself, \u201cWhoa, that\u2019s a big emotion\u2014not the time to express it,\u201d here is what I do?<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

EE: <\/b>Yes. I do. I will be totally honest that, of course, they don\u2019t always work. Especially when I get rundown. If I\u2019m tired, if I\u2019m hungry, some of what we call in the Atlas of Emotion as our pre-condition\u2014if my leading up to an emotion event, I don\u2019t have a lot of resources, it\u2019ll be harder to call on those tools.<\/span><\/p>\n

Just to name that with humility, that these are difficult experiences for us to manage, especially big emotions. One of the number one moves that I take is to really go and feel the sensations in my belly. It could be anywhere. I could notice sensations in my chest. I could notice sensations maybe around my face. But what I like to do is just notice this kind of bodily imprint of emotion experience and use what\u2019s called interoception, or this bodily felt experience, to help me be present. Once I am noticing the sensations in my body, it\u2019s almost as good as though I were able to name it or say exactly what it is.<\/span><\/p>\n

Another one I really try to do is, essentially, as though I were leaning back, zooming out. I may not physically move anywhere but inviting in this sense of \u201cOK, can I step back?\u201d There are these wonderful teachings by eighth-century master Shanti Deva\u2014not a contemporary scientist but an ancient scientist of the mind. This advice he gives us for strong emotions is remember scope\u2014remember that your feeling in this moment, in the context of our greater world, may or may not have much poignancy. He asks us to remember complexity; whatever is happening right now is connected to so many other things. It\u2019s just almost unknowable.<\/span><\/p>\n

Then the last, which I find to be, for me, the most inspiring, is this is training. There are always going to be difficult emotions, difficult feelings. Can I use this one as my training ground to continue to move towards my sense of calm and my ability to recover or have emotional resilience?<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS: <\/b>Back to this notion of granularity, do you attempt to find the specific word, the specific nuanced emotional word for what you\u2019re feeling? Does that help?<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

EE: <\/b>It does. I should mention that one early. It\u2019s one that I practiced for so long. It\u2019s pretty quick for me, to be able to identify it. Actually, it\u2019s not only the cognitive process. It is the embodied process. I\u2019ve spent quite a lot of time on retreat getting really familiar with, again, almost this body map of sensation. I know that anxiety has this imprint of almost a chin strap of tension, and then below the eyes, whereas anger is more of a warm, tense feeling in the chest. I can use the granularity either through noticing and naming the body or anger, frustration, anxiety, tension.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS: <\/b>I think part of the reason I\u2019m digging in so much to this vocabulary and the notion of granularity is I love words. I love words. Yet, I realize I don\u2019t have available to me dozens and dozens and dozens of words within each of the family of emotions. I haven\u2019t studied it, I haven\u2019t made that an important part of my inner education, and yet in looking at The Atlas of Emotions, I thought this is really a missed opportunity here. I wonder how many people haven\u2019t done that work and haven\u2019t studied all the different\u2014if you will, just going with the Atlas idea\u2014all the different countries that are within any emotional continent.<\/span><\/p>\n

My question to you is, how would you suggest someone approach that if it\u2019s a learning that is new for them, that they\u2019d like to do?<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

EE: <\/b>Yes. Such a great question. I actually think the best way, instead of the multitudes, is to start maybe with one emotion per day. For most of us, it\u2019s actually hard to identify a single emotion. When we\u2019re talking about emotion here, we\u2019re really using this contemporary scientific term, which is, an emotion arises in a 25th of a second and it generally only lasts 30 to 90 seconds. That\u2019s its physiological peak and then it comes down.<\/span><\/p>\n

Most of us think of emotions in these long stories, \u201cThe afternoon was terrible, and all of these things happened,\u201d so I invite people not only to go granular but to go specific. \u201cOK, what was that first incident?\u201d \u201cWell, yesterday, there I was trying to get to work, and I was in traffic, and I was so stressed out; it was so intense.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Instead of choosing the whole morning, maybe what happened after you got to work, and you were late and then what happened at lunch and then after lunch, just that one experience, what was the trigger? What was the experience of it? Meaning, what was the emotion? It was frustration or maybe anxiety. What was the response?<\/span><\/p>\n

If we get granular, not only on the state or experience of our emotion, but what leads to it and what leads out of it, it invites our natural curiosity, because, as you said, why learn all these names for emotions, right? I have enough to do. I could maybe learn more about how to be a great taster of wine and learn all those qualities.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS: <\/b>Yes. That sounds good. That sounds good. Yes.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

EE: <\/b>This is not that fun. I think when we look closely at our emotion, especially that kind of timeline of emotion, wow. There\u2019s nothing more interesting. It\u2019s so compelling. \u201cI can\u2019t believe this made me upset.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

As we look, day after day, we realize there are these patterns. There\u2019s nothing new, right? It\u2019s the same material, our same thoughts, our same habits, our same patterns. Of course, different events precede them, but we start to see that some of our emotions are actually quite regular guests in our daily experience.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS: <\/b>You said 30 to 90 seconds for an emotional guest but how do you make sense of the experience of \u201cI got this email\u2014I get that I was triggered in 1\/25th of a second\u2014but I was fricking angry for four days. That was not 30 to 90 seconds. I know I kept thinking about it, but I did not find the ending arc of that emotional experience. I stayed mad. I was even mad when I was sleeping.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

EE: <\/b>Yes. You know, waking up in that heat of the emotion, yes, it\u2019s very common. I know that well. I would say that if there is an ability to even pay attention, even closer to it\u2014it may seem like I\u2019m already paying pretty close attention to this emotion, it\u2019s making me this mad, over and over\u2014but we will notice that the physiology of it can come down naturally, unless we, as they say, poke the bear or we re-trigger.<\/span><\/p>\n

We re-trigger our emotion by thinking once again about the outrageous content of that email. Interestingly, coming back to granularity and specificity, when we do that process of naming the emotion, we\u2019re actually unhooking from the narrative story about what\u2019s so bad and what\u2019s so wrong.<\/span><\/p>\n

What we need to do in the process of our four days or four weeks or four years of being upset about something is try to intervene on that thought process that is just coming and coming and coming. It is really challenging to do so but we all can find these moments where we are not quite so enmeshed with the cognitive process, this idea of cognitive fusion. We\u2019re faceplanted in the experience of this story of what\u2019s not OK. As I mentioned, our emotions are these timelines. They\u2019re like these mini stories. How do we interrupt that story? Even just for a moment. Give ourselves some time to relax.<\/span><\/p>\n

I will, again, point us back to the body, noticing the sensations in the body, and as we\u2019re noticing sensations in the body, we\u2019re in the present. We\u2019re not thinking about the email, which is now in the past and we\u2019re not thinking about the email of our response, which is in the future.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS: <\/b>Another question I have for you\u2014I can\u2019t tell if this is because I haven\u2019t looked closely enough or not\u2014is can I be feeling, can anyone be feeling different emotions at the same time? What does the research say? Can I be happy\/sad at the same time? I can kind of be smiling and crying. I\u2019m happy\/sad at this news. Is that possible?<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

EE: <\/b>Yes. It\u2019s a great question. The research is not conclusive, in the contemporary scientific research. Again, when I look at the ancient research of the mind through a lot of contemplative practice, I do think we are having separate experiences of emotion happening back-to-back.<\/span><\/p>\n

When I think about being frustrated and then being sad and then feeling some shame, those might happen somewhat rapidly. I have found them to be distinct in my own first-person investigation and in what the research knows to date.<\/span><\/p>\n

Now one of the most exciting things about the science of emotion is there\u2019s a lot we don\u2019t know, and actually a lot we can\u2019t read. There is absolutely no instrument out there that can tell you how you\u2019re feeling with better accuracy than you.<\/span><\/p>\n

You might say, \u201cWell, I don\u2019t know how I\u2019m feeling,\u201d but you can be trained for that introspection just by, again, noticing the sensations in the body, developing that vocabulary, understanding the difference between a trigger, an experience, and a response.<\/span><\/p>\n

Within a couple weeks, you will be much better than any FMRI, than any ability, even through galvanic skin response or reading facial expression to identify what is going on for you emotionally.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS: <\/b>It\u2019s interesting, Eve, when you talk about your own first-person experience, your study of the contemplative traditions, and then your research and the science. I\u2019m curious. Do you have a sense of \u201cWhen it all comes down to it, I\u2019m really interested in my first-person experience\u201d? Or are you like, \u201cI want to put all three of these together. That\u2019s what\u2019s important to me. That\u2019s what really matters\u201d? How do you see it?<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

EE: <\/b>Yes. It\u2019s a good question. We know that science opens the door for so many people without access to a lot of cutting-edge teachings and ideas. For many people, Buddhism is never going to be something they\u2019re interested in. It seems religious or spiritual in a way that\u2019s unappealing.<\/span><\/p>\n

If there is some wisdom from these ancient traditions, they need an entrance into our contemporary orientation of what matters. That\u2019s scientific. I don\u2019t think there will ever be a time when the third-person observation, which is contemporary science, I don\u2019t feel there will ever be a time that doesn\u2019t matter, lest our entire consciousness really changes, which I am all for and I hope that happens where we start trusting spiritual wisdom as much as we trust scientific wisdom.<\/span><\/p>\n

For now, the science can also help us identify in a different way than first-person experience. First-person observation or first-person introspection, it\u2019s just incomparable. It\u2019s so empowering to develop self-awareness. Then, interestingly, there\u2019s a complimentary science that says self-awareness is a key to our wellbeing, that it not only helps us understand what we\u2019re experiencing in the moment, but it helps us make better choices in the future.<\/span><\/p>\n

I think they really go well together. I don\u2019t think I actually need to choose. Though, I will say there are some interesting tensions or moments, even in the understanding of emotion. For example, his holiness the Dalai Lama and my dad at their earliest conversation\u2014and now 22 years later\u2014there\u2019s still a debate around anger. Is anger ever OK or is anger always this poison of the mind? I get excited by the nature of that ongoing debate. I\u2019m glad not everyone agrees.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS: <\/b>What\u2019s your view on that? I have a view but I\u2019m curious what yours is.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

EE: <\/b>Yes. Anger, maybe needless to say, is a common emotion. I am really committed to a sense of true care and interest in our anger. When we are trying to avoid and deny our anger, which is often the way that people involved in various spiritual practices orient themselves, we\u2019re creating tension.<\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019ll tell a small story. One of the trainings I gave in Italy was at a beautiful center: the Istituto Lama Tzong Khapa. It\u2019s an old Tuscan castle that\u2019s been converted into a Buddhist hall. There were a lot of folks who were attending this training on emotional awareness who were practitioners for 15, 25 years of Tibetan Buddhism.<\/span><\/p>\n

We did this practice on noticing the experience of emotion and especially anger in the body. This woman said, \u201cWow. For the last 15 years, I thought I had a headache. I was just angry.\u201d Right? She was denying her anger, and it was still manifesting for her at a bodily level.<\/span><\/p>\n

I think trying to avoid or deny anger, because it\u2019s a poison, which is sometimes described in Buddhist text\u2014there\u2019s a famous saying, \u201cOne moment of anger is millions of lifetimes of merit are destroyed.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS: <\/b>I hope that\u2019s not true. I have to dispute it but, anyway, yes.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

EE: <\/b>I think it\u2019s a misunderstanding or maybe even a mistranslation of anger. When we think of anger, which is, again, this brief episode of feeling frustrated. I felt frustrated with myself this morning that I ran out of coffee\u2014did I just ruin all the merits of all my lifetimes? I don\u2019t think so.<\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s the kind of anger that carries ill will or intent to harm. There\u2019s a big distinction there. When I am frustrated, for example, by the political landscape of this world, by injustice, that\u2019s an anger that can actually manifest in a way that is very constructive.<\/span><\/p>\n

Sometimes people orient around negative and positive emotions. One thing in contemplative science of emotion we\u2019ve really put forth is there are no bad emotions, but we can respond in ways that are less helpful. If we think of anger as not a negative emotion but an emotion which can have a destructive response or a constructive response, then there\u2019s an opportunity.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS: <\/b>Eve, just to connect a dot here, if I was saying I\u2019m going to study anger and I\u2019m going to really look at subtleties and nuances, can you throw out for me\u2014this is not an oral exam, I\u2019m just curious\u2014can you throw out for me a dozen different kinds of anger that I could start identifying in my experience?<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

EE: <\/b>Yes. I think it\u2019s interesting. One I\u2019ll just name quickly is hatred, which is not even considered, per se, an emotion but an enduring state. With hatred, it\u2019s the same trigger over and over and over whereas for most of us, our anger comes and goes, we have different targets all the time.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201c<\/b>Anger\u201d is also a word people feel a little intimidated by. They might not want to own up to feeling angry. I\u2019ve done workshops in many parts of the world, and very often there is a desire to avoid saying, \u201cYes. I feel angry\u201d or, \u201cI get angry at work\u201d but if I bring up something like \u201cfrustrated\u201d or \u201cannoyed,\u201d \u201cOK. Yes. I feel frustrated,\u201d \u201cI feel annoyed.\u201d I think, again, there\u2019s a cultural weight sometimes with the word \u201canger,\u201d whereas a lot of its specificities, especially frustration, annoyance, I mean, there are so many different words\u2014\u201cpissed off,\u201d \u201crage.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

One unique characteristic of anger: it is the emotion that leads to war and violence. When we are enacting violence, it\u2019s out of a deep rage or anger. Often it includes a dehumanization, right? Especially in the case of war, so that is actually the emotion of disgust.<\/span><\/p>\n

When we experience disgust, we\u2019re dehumanizing the other. It\u2019s as though they are so toxic and different from you. See, I did the facial expression, which is to raise the nose and that crinkling of the nose actually opens the apertures of the nostril, so I can smell better.<\/span><\/p>\n

There\u2019s this evolutionary adaptation, not only to our feelings of emotion, but even our expressions of emotion.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS: <\/b>When you say that you\u2019re an ethicist and all of us have the potential to be, what does that mean?<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

EE: <\/b>In that when we\u2019re creating and when we\u2019re considering our user (I don\u2019t love that word\u2014I could say \u201cour audience\u201d) we have to think about their best interest, and really keep that in mind, and not let what we can do, because we have the skill or ability, outweigh our hope or aspiration for what can be experienced and gained from our hardware or surfaces.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS: <\/b>OK. With Sounds True and with Dr. Keltner of the Greater Good Science Center, you\u2019ve created a new online offering. I don\u2019t even need to say, with the ethicist in you, fully operational, obviously. It\u2019s called the <\/span>Greater Good Training for Health Professionals: Science-Based Skills for Emotional Resilience and Wellbeing<\/span><\/i>.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS: <\/b>I\u2019m wondering as you think about this program and how you designed it, how you drew on your own experience working in the healthcare field, what from your own experience was important to you in the design of this program?<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

EE: <\/b>Yes. I feel so fortunate we\u2019re bringing this to light. This was a dream of Dacher\u2019s and mine for many years. Dacher is coming from, of course, the very scientific view of the highest potential of humans, our awe, our kindness, our generosity. I love those qualities. But, Tami, what comes from me, from my experience is how do we be with our sadness? How do we be with our anger? How do we be with our shame?<\/span><\/p>\n

I was so intent that this program that we were offering wouldn\u2019t just give people the good news. The good news really matters. It\u2019s really important for us to develop meaningful social connections. That\u2019s the ultimate stress buffer that we have. But to also make space and give people tools to be with those difficult emotions is essential. They don\u2019t need to be the thing we get rid of and avoid.<\/span><\/p>\n

When I was working in the emergency room, I was really fortunate to work there for six years. I got a pretty good insight into the workings of that place. Then when I was a post-doc, I got to spend another three years working with physicians and residents and nurses interviewing them about stress and burnout and then creating trainings for them and evaluating trainings.<\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve gotten a couple different angles on the healthcare work. It\u2019s really interesting. There\u2019s such a beautiful tension between this work that offers possibly the most meaning I could imagine, which is if you look at the science of happiness, meaning is at the very core, and this work that really challenges our very natural desire to be empathic and care for others.<\/span><\/p>\n

Empathy rose up as such a powerful important area to understand when I was studying healthcare. It wasn\u2019t something that I noticed when I was working in healthcare. It was so natural. It was literally the water I swam in to be available for others. Empathy has really come up. I think we really try to address it.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS: <\/b>Yes. Talk to me about what you call sustainable empathy versus the empathy that leads to, \u201cI can\u2019t take this anymore. I can\u2019t take it.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

EE: <\/b>Yes. For me, it\u2019s such a natural reflection of understanding emotions. When we look at our emotions, we realize these are not something we choose. I don\u2019t choose to feel sad or angry. Maybe if I watch certain shows or if I read the news and I want to feel a certain way, but most of our emotions just arise, unbidden. And the way that we respond to other\u2019s emotions is also not something we necessarily choose.<\/span><\/p>\n

One example, let\u2019s say, of me working in the emergency room is I see a patient come in, who is clearly distressed and in pain. I\u2019m not thinking, \u201cHuh, I wonder if that patient is in pain. If they were in pain, I\u2019d feel bad for them.\u201d Their emotion expression is immediately resonated. I can feel it through my entire body.<\/span><\/p>\n

With empathy, we have both that immediate emotional resonance and what\u2019s called our cognitive appraisal, or, essentially, what we think about it. These happen almost instantaneously but we see through the neuroscience that we have that immediate emotional resonance and then maybe milliseconds after, we have a thought about it, what\u2019s happening here?<\/span><\/p>\n

This is a crucial juncture for empathy. If my thought when that person is coming into the ambulance bay looking distressed, if my immediate thought is, \u201cOh my God. I can\u2019t handle it. One more patient? We\u2019ve already had five traumas today. I\u2019m tired. I haven\u2019t even eaten lunch,\u201d I may go into what\u2019s called an empathic distress, a sense of literally, \u201cI can\u2019t handle it,\u201d and overwhelm.<\/span><\/p>\n

We could also have that in experience of despair, \u201cGod, this hospital system is so broken. I can\u2019t. I\u2019m done. This is too much for me\u201d and that\u2019s interestingly our cognitive process. That same patient coming in, we could have the appraisal of, \u201cOh, I know that patient. They were here last week. I know them. I think they have these issues they\u2019re not taking care of,\u201d whether that\u2019s my projection of them having substance use or mental health issues and, unfortunately, this happens, right? We can become callous. We can even have a sense of aversion.<\/span><\/p>\n

We have someone come in and our appraisal is, \u201cThat\u2019s not my problem. I don\u2019t care.\u201d Right there I\u2019m highlighting two different aspects of burnout. Burnout includes this sense of emotional overwhelm, emotional exhaustion. It also includes cynicism, a lack of caring. Then we have an opportunity with empathy to come in and see this person suffering and recognize, \u201cI care. I want to support this being who is coming in here, this person, this patient.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

With that compassion, it can go many ways, right? Our appraisal of compassion can mean immediately I run to the bedside and help, it means I give some space, check in later. And empathy that leads to compassion is an informed compassion. When we\u2019re making those wise choices about what to do, our empathy becomes more sustainable, not only because we\u2019re not falling into that despair and personal distress or aversion and kind of callousness, but also, we\u2019re just getting clear on what is ours to do and when with our compassion.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS: <\/b>You made this interesting leap from connecting with empathy to moving into compassion. I wonder if you can talk more about that, that shift and what the difference is? \u201cHere I\u2019m empathizing with your pain but now I\u2019m being compassionate towards your situation.\u201d How is that a different emotional response?<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

EE: <\/b>Yes. It\u2019s interesting. There\u2019s been quite a lot of meaningful debate and research around what some people call empathy burnout or compassion burnout. When people say \u201cempathy burnout,\u201d they are talking about that distress, right? That empathic distress of being overwhelmed, enmeshed with another\u2019s emotions.<\/span><\/p>\n

When we talk about compassion burnout, usually, we\u2019re also talking about empathic distress. When we think of compassion in the way that it can extend from empathy, it just has a wider range, right? I like having terms that are really specific. Empathy, it\u2019s our automatic shared emotional resonance, our appraisal, and then how we respond that\u2019s kind of up in the air. We can have a compassionate response.<\/span><\/p>\n

I think it\u2019s really interesting. You look at the work of neuroscientists like Jamil Zaki and he has a different point of view than Paul Bloom and people have these ideas about empathy that they will write about and research about and kind of claim that empathy will harm us or empathy will help us. Ultimately, I think it comes down to, especially in the context of healthcare, how do we sustain an open heart?<\/span><\/p>\n

For many people, their desire when they see high volumes of suffering is to kind of shutdown and to not open up. I get it. It\u2019s hard. When people are desiring to shut down, maybe they go to that callousness, like, \u201cI don\u2019t want to care about this, I don\u2019t want to be involved,\u201d but when we keep ourselves open to compassion, when we feel empathy, we\u2019re also keeping ourselves open to a sense of meaning and purpose that comes with our work.<\/span> In the moment, I don\u2019t think you can make that choice. It\u2019s really training you have to do outside of work.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS: <\/b>This question, how do we sustain an open heart? I want to bring that question out for a moment, even beyond the work of the healthcare professional, to all of us living in our world, who are exposed to the news and current events and who are asking the question, how do we sustain an open heart? How do we do it? What suggestions do you have?<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

EE: <\/b>Yes. Beautiful question. It\u2019s one I\u2019ve thought quite a lot about. I think it might possibly be one of the most important questions for us as we are definitely not moving into easier times any time soon. You know, with ongoing political, social, climate concerns, it\u2019s an important one for us to be able to have these open hearts or this ability to sustain our empathy and compassion.<\/span><\/p>\n

I will first quote one of my favorite teachers, Pema Ch\u00f6dr\u00f6n. I asked her this same question when I had the opportunity\u2014whenever you have the opportunity to be in the presence of great teachers, ask great questions. I asked her the exact same question. She said to me this really interesting thing, which I haven\u2019t heard her say anyone else, so I\u2019ll share it with everyone here, which was, \u201cThis might sound funny but you have to give up all hope of fruition\u201d\u2014not give up hope, but give up hope of how it will come out.<\/span><\/p>\n

I think one way to sustain our open heart is to not have an idea of what an open heart will lead to, not have an idea of the actions or behaviors or even dispositions or feelings, that they\u2019re going to lead to a specific thing.<\/span><\/p>\n

This is especially true in healthcare, but for all of us. We care. We are kind. We support, whether it\u2019s in our family or at a broader scale. We want to promote positive change. We want to help people. We want our kindness to lead to positive outcomes.<\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s not always that way. That extra level of distress and fatigue that can happen when our expectations aren\u2019t met, it\u2019s unnecessary. Happily, just doing good as Dacher will tell you, over and over, just doing good feels good. There\u2019s a natural reward system built into that altruistic behavior, that compassionate behavior, that kindness. Then what do we need to get out of the way? Kind of our expectation of how it goes. It\u2019s quite simple.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS: <\/b>That\u2019s very helpful. Thank you. When I asked you, Eve, about your own experience working in the healthcare profession and how that informed your design of the Greater Good Science training offering, you said that you wanted to make sure that we were addressing the sadness, anger, and shame that healthcare professionals experience.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS: <\/b>As you said that, I thought, \u201cI think I can connect to the sadness and anger that I might experience being in healthcare, but I don\u2019t quite know why would I feel shame if I worked in that profession?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

EE: <\/b>Yes. It just happens to be an occupational hazard of being a human, that shame one. I think it comes up in any profession we\u2019re in and to not name that emotion really prevents us from being able to understand it and work with it.<\/span><\/p>\n

I think we can feel shame, especially around our destructive emotions. At work, there\u2019s conflict. Again, humans are involved. We are imperfect, we have these different emotional experiences. They don\u2019t always match each other.<\/span><\/p>\n

An interesting part about having conflict or anger with another person is afterwards we can just feel either regret or guilt or shame. With the shame, there\u2019s a specific flavor of not just, \u201cI wish I hadn\u2019t lost my head\u201d, but \u201cI\u2019m always going to lose my head. There\u2019s something so wrong with me. God, I just can\u2019t do this well.\u201d Right?<\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s an interesting one. You know, when I\u2019ve gone to teach this emotion episode timeline, as we do in the training, around our triggers, our experience, our responsive emotion, when it comes to shame, it\u2019s a long history. It\u2019s not necessarily something created by healthcare. It\u2019s something that people have picked up throughout their entire life experiences of not feeling good enough, not being seen, and then it comes into the contemporary context of, again, maybe losing your temper, not showing up for a patient the way you want to. Maybe flying off the handle on a patient family member. Totally inappropriate professionally, absolutely natural and normal as a human, to not be able to always show up fully.<\/span><\/p>\n

I remember one resident sharing this beautiful story about she was trying to have a pediatric client admitted into the hospital. She was in the ER. The patient was a young child, I think six or seven. He had really bad heart issues. She called up to the cardiac team. And some people may not know this, but in the hospital, different teams operate like different organizations, and they don\u2019t always have to say yes. She says, \u201cI want this patient admitted,\u201d and they said no.<\/span><\/p>\n

She had spent hours with this family, this terrified family, this sick child. She was so angry in that moment, that she yelled at them. She became so upset. In my humble opinion, it might have been a constructive response. They admitted the patient. What she described to me was that she had been in weeks of feeling shame after, that she had lost her cool.<\/span><\/p>\n

I think being able to name and identify the fact that we are not always going to act in accordance with our ethics, with our goals, and with our meaning, that\u2019s a really important part of healing and moving on and learning.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS: <\/b>I\u2019m imagining the healthcare professional who says, \u201cYes, it\u2019s important that I have a training like this Greater Good Science training. I want to develop more of these emotional competencies, and the system is broken. It\u2019s not just about me developing these greater emotional capacities.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS: <\/b>I\u2019m curious, in your view, what is broken about the system? What are the ways we\u2019re going to change it? How are we going to change it, Eve?<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

EE: <\/b>Yes. I\u2019m so glad you\u2019re asking this, Tami. It\u2019s absolutely right. You look on Pub Med, right? Which is our tool for looking up research studies. There are over 100,000 studies on burnout. There\u2019s a lot. And yet, very few of them tell you what to do.<\/span><\/p>\n

There was a meta-analysis, meaning putting all of these studies together and trying to look at what helps, and the main purpose of that meta-analysis was if should we respond to burnout at an institutional level or at a personal level. Should we help train people as we do in this program in small groups or one to one? Should we change the whole system?<\/span><\/p>\n

What they found in this meta-analysis was that both are needed. It was in some ways like, duh, not that helpful but also really clarifying that both are needed, the system absolutely needs to change, and we need to help people to feel well enough to change it.<\/span><\/p>\n

In the course, I will say that we\u2019re so fortunate. We\u2019ve interviewed a lot of colleagues in the field who are at the front lines of wellbeing in hospital care systems. These are people designing and leading programs for wellbeing across different sites.<\/span><\/p>\n

You hear them talk about what it takes to make wellbeing happen in the hospitals. They are shifting and changing culture. I know that\u2019s a really broad term, but you can\u2019t necessarily just change the hospital through one or two specific policies. I mean, there are many things you can list off, doctors need more time with patients and less hours putting those notes into the system. You will hear that over and over and over. The billing system is itself just entirely too burdensome on the healthcare providers. However, even, let\u2019s say, imagine a perfect world where the billing system wasn\u2019t so messed up, where people had more time with patients, there\u2019s still going to be the emotional distress of working with people who are suffering and dying and not being able to help them.<\/span><\/p>\n

I think we need to build these capacities side by side, of that sustainable empathy, and being able to advocate and rally for what needs to change in the system, so it can be a more human system, a more heartfelt system. I rely on these frontline providers doing that work and their optimism. They can actually hold optimism and despair at once. They know that these systems are profoundly messed up, and yet they feel confident in the care they\u2019re able to provide, at least, at a patient-to-patient basis.<\/span><\/p>\n

For the changes that need to happen, again, it has to be culture wide. It can\u2019t be just one team or one department. The change might need to happen bottom up, it might need to happen from the top down. Probably both. I would say the best people to ask are going to be those right there on the front lines trying to improve wellbeing.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS: <\/b>What would you say to someone who finds themselves railing against injustice, knowing that their energy is getting drained out in the process but they have this thing inside, it\u2019s this voice inside, that\u2019s just like, \u201cThis is wrong and this is wrong and this is wrong and this is wrong and I\u2019m going to say it again, and this is wrong\u201d and this is just like an inner dialogue. Of course, there\u2019s so much validity in what they\u2019re saying and they also recognize that their position, their posture, isn\u2019t particularly useful in the moment.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

EE: <\/b>Yes. Very common. Among activists, among healthcare providers, and folks involved in all different kinds of politics as well. So how do we really care and yet not get burned out by the care?<\/span><\/p>\n

I do think that, again, coming back to anger, really having a better understanding of anger, having an understanding of how anger impacts our body will be motivating. I think being able to apply some sense of understanding to that frustration, that sense of injustice. Injustice is a core trigger to anger. When we feel that injustice and we notice the anger in our bodies, we feel that rising of heat, can we take just a moment and apply care? Not only is this incredibly unjust to the population I care about, it hurts me.<\/span><\/p>\n

Ironically, turning towards ourselves may help us sustain for others. There\u2019s a sense sometimes in helpers, in general, that we can\u2019t take time for ourselves. \u201cLook at the injustice out there. How can I take time for myself?\u201d And yet we know so well, of course, that the wounded healer is really at a compromised position to do their healing.<\/span><\/p>\n

Even that kind of moment, I would say breath to breath here, we\u2019re just thinking of \u201cHere I am, facing an injustice in the healthcare system, walking down the hallway. Oh God. This patient is here again? They haven\u2019t been able to fill their medication because they don\u2019t have enough money, and all the paperwork I filled out for them keeps getting just lost? This system is so messed up.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

In that moment, I just feel so much anger and that anger is such an important cue that we need to keep working but can we just take one breath of recognizing this anger is hard for me too. This is hard for me, because I care. Not that it\u2019s about me, not that it\u2019s my hurt but I do think those pauses for care and kindness towards our difficult and distressing emotions is essential.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS: <\/b>You mentioned this lesson from Pema Ch\u00f6dr\u00f6n to give up all hope of fruition, and yet I\u2019m going to ask you a kind of hope for fruition question anyway, which is, what\u2019s your hope for the <\/span>Greater Good Training for Health Professionals<\/span><\/i>? For this online offering, what\u2019s your hope about the impact it will have in the healthcare field?<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

EE: <\/b>Yes. That one is pretty easy, I have to say. Happily, when we\u2019ve had some of our in-person trainings and online, it\u2019s not necessarily that people remember this specific skill or that specific skill, but they create small communities, so that if they aren\u2019t remembering that day, someone else on their unit remembers like, \u201cOh, did you think of a good thing today? Did you practice silver linings with that difficult experience?\u201d so that people create maybe one or three, even five other people that they do the training with.<\/span><\/p>\n

That would make me so happy to think of people working on these together. We designed it so that people could do it together. After my years of looking at burnout and trying to understand the best ways we can work on it, I have to say that building a pro-social community, building a community where people are not only just sharing what\u2019s hard and what\u2019s bad\u2014that matters\u2014but also sharing what\u2019s good and what they care for. That is truly I think a chemical power right there. I would wish that more than anything.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS: <\/b>We\u2019re going to practice something like silver linings. Tell me about that, because I had a moment when you said that and I was like, \u201cI don\u2019t know if I could do that. You really want me to tell you the silver lining here?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

EE: <\/b>Yes.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS: <\/b>That\u2019s going to be a stretch. I know it\u2019s good. It\u2019s going to be good for me and I want to hear other people\u2019s but there\u2019s a stretch in that as well.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

EE: <\/b>Yes. Yes. Yes. There\u2019s an aspect of some of these practices that can feel saccharine if they\u2019re not done in a grounded way. You know, \u201cSilver linings\u2014are you kidding me? We just had this terrible day. How can there be a silver lining?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

We aren\u2019t saying make everything OK, but we are inviting people to in some ways kind of shift their lens, shift their mindset towards what might be OK. So, in the silver linings episode in the course, we had a pediatrician, someone who works with kids who are sick and dying, how do you find silver linings there, right? That\u2019s so hard. For her, she\u2019s describing the sense of closeness and contact with the family and being able to support them as this kid is very sick.<\/span><\/p>\n

There\u2019s not a silver lining in the sickness of this kid. There\u2019s a silver lining in what she can offer. Again, that giving up hope of fruition or really actually being realistic in what we\u2019re creating meaning around. If the healthcare provider creates meaning around the outcome of their patient, they\u2019re going to feel disappointed. If they create meaning around how they show up, \u201cWow. I showed up and I could listen. I showed up in a caring way,\u201d there\u2019s a lot more possibility.<\/span><\/p>\n

With practices like silver lining, it\u2019s like we\u2019re directing people towards what\u2019s already good. We\u2019re not forcing it. We\u2019re just in some ways revealing the goodness that\u2019s all around them, that sometimes just gets buried among the busyness and the hierarchy and the other challenges.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS: <\/b>To end our conversation, Eve, you\u2019ve mentioned this idea of meaning. When we know our meaning, when we can own it, claim it, say it, when we\u2019re standing in it, that somehow gives us energy and is actually a key to our happiness. What\u2019s the research behind this? Really, there\u2019s research that says this?<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

EE: <\/b>Yes. I mean, the research is kind of phenomenal. There are some studies that I just love to cite. One that shows people with meaning quite literally live longer. They did this large survey-based study and people who say they have some sense of meaning in their life truly just add years onto their life or added years onto their life.<\/span><\/p>\n

We see that people who have a sense of\u2014\u201cmeaning\u201d and \u201cpurpose\u201d are used a little interchangeably, that\u2019s OK\u2014people who have a sense of purpose, they\u2019re less likely to have difficulties when they become sick, so, greater immunological functioning. It\u2019s kind of amazing. It\u2019s like meaning can not only improve your life, it can extend your life. But I think one of the reasons why is our mindset, how we think about what we\u2019re experiencing, is so powerful.<\/span><\/p>\n

In the healthcare setting, for example, if every day I go in and I\u2019m doing my job and I don\u2019t think it matters, \u201cUgh, I\u2019m trying to help people but it\u2019s just so hard and I can\u2019t do enough\u201d, we are going to really have a mindset that feels quite despairing and we know that that can shift actually how our entire autonomic nervous system is functioning, how we feel about our experience, but if we have a mindset of \u201cI am doing this work, because every single thing I do matters,\u201d there\u2019s a different mindset; or even, \u201cGod, I appreciate or have a sense of almost awe about this work I get to do,\u201d it can improve people\u2019s sense of wellbeing.<\/span><\/p>\n

The same work, right? We go back to Viktor Frankl, who is always quoted when it comes to meaning, and he has this sense that it\u2019s not what the material of our life is but how we respond to the material of our life that allows us to create meaning. He says there\u2019s nothing that we can\u2019t create meaning from. I agree. Whatever it is, we can find some way to have a sense of \u201cI showed up with compassion. I cared.\u201d I think the meaning, it always feels like it has to be so grand, but I really like the micro-meaning. Setting intentions for reminding ourselves what our meaning is before we do almost anything.<\/span><\/p>\n

I often tell healthcare providers to do so right before you enter the room with the patient or, these days, right before you enter the Zoom telemedicine consult with a patient, remember the meaning of why you\u2019re there. What does it matter to show up? What are the qualities you want to bring to that interaction?<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS: <\/b>I\u2019ve been speaking with Dr. Eve Ekman, who along with Dacher Keltner of the Greater Good Science Center has created a new online offering. It\u2019s called <\/span>The Greater Good Training for Health Professionals: Science-Based Skills For Emotional Resilience and Wellbeing<\/span><\/i>. It\u2019s part of our meaning-making at Sounds True to spread this program far and wide. If you\u2019re interested, I encourage you, come check it out at SoundsTrue.com.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS: <\/b>Eve, awesome to talk with you. You\u2019re such an inspiring person. Thank you so much.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

EE: <\/b>Thank you, Tami.<\/span><\/p>\n

TS: <\/b>Thanks for listening to <\/span>Insights at the Edge<\/span><\/i>. You can read a full transcript of today\u2019s interview at resources2.soundstrue.com\/Podcast. That\u2019s resources2.soundstrue.com\/Podcast. If you\u2019re interested, hit the Subscribe button in your podcast app. If you feel inspired, head to iTunes and leave <\/span>Insights at the Edge<\/span><\/i> a review. I absolutely love getting your feedback and being connected. Sounds True: waking up the world.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"template":"","meta":{"_expiration-date-status":"","_expiration-date":0,"_expiration-date-type":"","_expiration-date-categories":[],"_expiration-date-options":[]},"class_list":["post-19615","transcript","type-transcript","status-publish","hentry"],"yoast_head":"\nHow Do We Sustain An Open Heart - Transcript | Sounds True<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Read the full transcript from this Sounds True conversation with How Do We Sustain An Open Heart. 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